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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

SB 1070 proves all Arizona state legislators should be voted out of office.

The Arizona state legislature has not come very far since the days of AZSCAM, the 1991 major political scandal that resulted in the resignation or removal of ten members of the House and Senate. Seven of them were charged with bribery, money laundering, and filing false election claims after being videotaped accepting thousands of dollars from a reputed mobster posing as a gaming consultant looking to assist the drive to legalize casino gambling.

Instead of representatives looking to illegally profit from their positions, the legislature is now filled with people with political acumens about as sharp as a church sermon on original sin. They are saying the intensity of the reaction to SB 1070 caught them off guard.

Republicans lead the bumbling way, but the Democrats are not far behind.

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, the assistant House minority leader, said recently that while she had hoped to defeat SB 1070, even the opponents of the bill didn't foresee the national argument it started. "I knew it would be bad, but no one thought it would be this big," she said. "No one."

Really? Really?

You thought when your legislative body passed the most racist piece of legislation this country has seen in almost two generations, representing the biggest step backwards in race relations since the Japanese Exclusion Case ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II, and arguably the only blatantly racist legislation since the Civil Rights act of 1964 outlawed the last vestiges of segregation, that the rest of country would be focused on summer picnicking? You weren’t paying attention to the black civil rights movement in the 60’s? Or at least read about it? Jeez.

You thought when your legislative body placed a target on the back of every Hispanic in the state of Arizona, legal or otherwise, that the 2 millions Hispanics in the state would merely issue you their blubbering thanks?

Maybe it’s time to do a few less book signings, and a little more reading?

Yet that pales next to the idiocy that is the average Republican in explaining being blindsided by the furious reaction to SB 1070.

"The majority of us who voted yes on that bill, myself included, did not expect or encourage an outcry from the public," said state Rep. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale. "The majority of us just voted for it because we thought we could try to fix the problem. Nobody envisioned boycotts. Nobody anticipated the emotion, the prayer vigils. The attitude was: these are the laws, let's start following them."

Really? Really?

You thought you could establish your own immigration enforcement agency like Sheriff Joe, who is likely about to get indicted by the federal government for his abuse of power, and establish as official state policy his “let’s round up the Hispanics” schtik calculated to politically pander to the worst traits in the ultra-conservative Arizona Republican that rules the state, and that the federal government would just look the other way?

You thought the state of Arizona enforcing federal law on its own was the same as the federal government enforcing the federal law? Because you missed eighth-grade civics class, you thought the rest of the country did also? Or because some kook law professor from Topeka with white-supremacist ties and a history of stirring up illegal immigrant litigation so he could score some attorney fees for himself told you the law “mirrors federal law”? In the words of John McEnroe, heretofore unquoted on politics, “You cannot be serious!”

State Rep. John KKKavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, who helped write part of SB 1070, said the federal government's chronic inability to deal with illegal immigration forced the Arizona legislature to pass the illegal law that is SB 1070. He cited national polls favoring the state's measure, saying the law's popularity suggests Washington is out of step with the rest of America.

"We'll do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves,"…"And based upon Washington's response to this law, more will be needed."

In other words, it’s okay because “everybody’s doing it.”

Dear John: you’ve been out in the sun too long. Check with your mother on the “everybody’s doing it” excuse. Come inside, start reading some history books, which will reflect that it is you who is out of step with American values, not the Obama administration. Good luck with the lawsuit thing. You’re going to need it.

Perhaps the genius of the year award goes to a legislator who didn’t even get to cast a vote in favor of SB 1070, US Congressman Rep. Jeff Flake, R-AZ, who has the mostappropriate name for a character, fact or fiction, since Tom Thumb. A conservative Republican with a reputation for having a bit of a liberal streak when it comes to social issues, Flake wants to see SB 1070 go into effect so we can all see that it does not work??!!

And I suppose he also wanted to see hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans so we could all see the need to fix the levees?

NEVER in my wildest nightmare would I ever have envisioned that a group of Arizona politicians could enable me to view Sen. John Kyl, R-AZ, as a reasonable person. But it has come to that.

The only sensible thing I have heard from any Arizona politician without a horse in the race has come from Mary Rose Wilcox, a Democratic Maricopa County supervisor who is hoping US District Judge Susan Bolton will block SB 1070 from going into effect. "I have never felt the racism that you are feeling in Arizona today because of this bill."

To say "no one" saw this coming probably does not include intellectually-challenged Gov. Jan Brewer, arguably the smartest one of the whole Phoenix-based bunch. At least she could see would shoot up in the polls.

Alas, when the state finds out what the measure truly cost them, she’ll be discarded like yesterday’s bathwater.

It’s clear that these people should not be running a carnival, much less a state government.

TO ALL CITIZENS OF ARIZONA: We get the government deserve. VOTE. And vote them all out. Every single one of them. It’s time to start over.

I don't feel you went overboard at all. In fact, I think this can't be emphasized enough. I laugh at the comparisons of our state legislators to Nazis, as if they were some evil supergeniuses. They're really just sheltered, lowbred ignoramuses that lack the perspicacity and foresight to understand the long-term consequences of their actions. They're conditioned like a knee-jerk reflex: no thinking involved, just reactionary policy.

Mary Rose Wilcox is indeed one of the few sane people in Arizona who hold any kind of office of power. Another one of these is Rick Romley ("The Only Grown-Up Left in the Room," Arizona Republic, 11 Jul 2010 http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/EJMontini/90180). As is Terry Goddard ("Can't a Reasonable Man Be Governor?" Arizona Republic, 2 Jul 2010 http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/EJMontini/88031).

The problem is the vastly under-educated Arizona electorate. I personally don't care if I feel intellectually inferior to a politician; in fact, I should sincerely hope I find myself in such a situation. While I am better-educated than the supermajority of Arizonans who only have a high school education, I still don't want legislators on my level or legislators I can relate to. I have pretty well-reasoned beliefs, but I'm ill-prepared to recognize the far-reaching consequences should my beliefs ever become enshrined into state law. Obviously, this is what happened to Arizona state legislators.

There was some quote I used in a freshman philosophy paper about the fact that only the truly educated understand how ignorant they are - meaning the ones who never learned, have no idea how much they don't know, but the more you learn, the more you realize what a limited worldview we all have.

That Arizonans never learned, don't understand, or don't believe this has played out like a giant real-life Monty Python skit; they don't know how little they know, so they assume they know everything there is to know! This is best exemplified by dimwits who have never even taken a single class in Constitutional Law or Economics, yet can enact laws and public policies (of course, I mean our governor who couldn't even complete x-ray tech programs at two different community colleges) without truly understanding the ramifications of said actions. She at first dismissed the boycott as not that big a deal because she doesn't understand demand-pull economics. It took weeks for the dunderhead to realize "Hotel Industry not happy, no revenue for Jan."

Even though I have a good education from an excellent school, I fully realize that my beliefs may have economic ripples much further than I'd ever intend. If you look closely at some of our accidental Gov's statements, you can see that she truly doesn't understand the simplest concepts that you'd expect a state governor to understand. For example, when asked for a statement on Judge Bolton's comments that SB 1070 is poorly-worded, Brewer said this: "Judge Bolton asked very good questions. I believe they were well intended to make all of us understand and to listen to exactly what she was saying." WHAT THE HELL IS SUPPOSED TO MEAN? However, if you take into account that Brewer does not have the mental power to process SB 1070, much less judicial opinions on it, the reason for her cryptic, illogical statement is clear: she didn't understand a word of what just happened. Time after time, Brewer remains shocked and caught off guard to the reactions to her policies (because she doesn't understand the ramifications of her actions): http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/11/25/20091125lawsuit1125.html

I guess this is a possible explanation for why she gutted university funding - god forbid the electorate become smarter than the legislators and realize what an economic, social, and legal disaster the state is in due to their misguided, poorly thought-out policies.

I don't think you're going overboard at all. I am running for Congress in Jeff Flake's congressional district in the August 24 Green party primary, and I can tell you that Arizona politicians are the some of the stupidest people anywhere, except perhaps for their constituents.

The only plus side of SB 1070 is that it will get the few intelligent people left in Arizona who are able to leave the state do so. I'm boycotting Arizona and am in New York making three times my Arizona salary and enjoying being around cultured, intelligent, well-informed people - something I could never do in Apache Junction.

I have learned, the harder way I believe, that the main thing is to be grateful, and happiness follows. I cannot always pull it off. I have come to believe things happen for a reason, though it does not always seem that way.

Sounds like you are in a good spot right now, so good for you.

I know all about spinning bad things as opportunities, and many time they are precisely that; however, I see no plus side to SB 1070. I can spin one, but I really do not believe it.

Good luck in the primary. Anybody who would not vote for you over Flake most likely is one.